The Avengers? They have Nick Fury for guidance. But Madame Web? It was clear that Hannibal — Mads Mikkelsen’s version, to be precise — was pulling the strings all along.
Don’t start judging me and no, my brain cells didn’t collectively combust after watching the 2-hour long film that probably exists in its own pocket dimension because making sense of it in any reality proves to be a tough task. Instead, I had a grand epiphany…
Well, it all goes back to the very first episode of NBC’s Hannibal season 1, where Will Graham, an FBI profiler with the ability to assume the mindset of any killer and figure out their “design” — why they kill, where they kill, and what they plan to do next. But, in his very first case with the bureau, Will was having difficulty differentiating the popularly-dubbed Minnesota Shrike from the garden variety serial killer, so Hannibal, being the kind-hearted cannibal he was (and beyond invested in FBI’s “psychic” profiler), went ahead and killed a girl in the exact same fashion as the Shrike, but adopted a completely different method of presenting the body.
The result? Will managed to correctly diagnose the Shrike’s MO and his next move. How? In the words of Will, the copycat killer made it possible for him to see the whole picture:
“It’s like he had to show me a negative so that I could see a positive.”
Eh, morbid, yes. But effective. It worked for Will, and it definitely works for me and every disgruntled MCU fan out there.
The MCU should thank Sony Pictures for Madame Web
Yes, yes, Marvel Studios went all batsh*t crazy with all the announcements — Fantastic Four’s cast, and X-Men 97’s trailer — just as Madame Web released, in order to a) set itself apart from Sony’s downright embarrassing adaptation of the Spider-Man universe, and b) to cash-in on all the disappointment Cassie Webb and team managed to generate, and drumming up even more hype for its most-awaited projects.
But Madame Web isn’t just profitable — the only scenario in which the word can be applied to the film — for MCU’s future, as it also fixes its latest mistakes…
…or at least allows us to see that they were not as bad as we believed them to be. I mean, seriously, Jane Foster yelling “Well then if it’s color we need, let’s bring the rainbow!” in Thor: Love and Thunder was cringey, but it doesn’t stand a chance against Madame Web’s embarrassing attempt at foreshadowing Ben Parker’s future death, where Cassie’s first scene with a young Ben includes this dialogue — made even more unnerving and tasteless with Johnson’s robotic line-delivery:
“What, you don’t wanna get shot in Queens?”
…A true “masterpiece,” isn’t it? Don’t even get me started on the pathetic attempts at connecting to Spider-Man as much as possible — “he keeps leaping around in there” — the terrible CGI, the poor line-dubbing, the fact that the superhero costumes — featured so prominently in the trailers — barely make an appearance, or how the supposed-to-be riveting final battle just kept spoiling itself.
Sure, we consistently fret about the MCU’s standards: We laid out The Marvels’ myriad failures (yep, guilty as charged); how Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania didn’t debut Marvel’s new villain properly; and that Love and Thunder, along with The Eternals, is the epitome of the worst the studio could offer. But now? It is impossible not to see the positive side of the MCU ledger now, when Sony is busy providing “disappointing and terrible” a new definition.
The Captain Marvel sequel had its funny moments and debuted a great trio, even if they didn’t get to cement their exemplary teamwork with a good plot. The same goes for Jennifer Walters as She-Hulk. Ant-Man 3 looks like Endgame now and Thor 4… well, I am ready to at least consider forgiving Taika Waititi. But what’s better is, amidst all the mistakes the MCU has been making, its better moments were being neglected — WandaVision, Moon Knight, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, What If…?, Werewolf by Night, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Loki, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and Spider-Man: No Way Home.
It is like Sony, of course inadvertently, keeps delivering MCU fans the negatives to open their eyes to the fact that given Marvel Studio’s drive to give us something different after Endgame, it has been taking risks and going against successful formulas to give us something new. I don’t know about you, but the imaginary Will Graham in my head surely acknowledges that the MCU does deserve several pats on the back.
